Somewhere Along The Way
by Adeline
Summary: A surprise visitor comes and knocks on the door... :P
1. Default Chapter

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Somewhere along the way by Adeline ([][1]gossy16@yahoo.com)  


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CATEGORY: DR, CH (although Doug ain't there yet)  
PART: 1 of a bunch if there's interest. 

FEATURED CHARACTERS: DR, CH  
TIMEFRAME: Summer 2002.  
SPOILERS? None at all.  
FEEDBACK? Yes, please. :)  
NOTES: Thanks a bunch to all who commented on/reviewed my previous works, be it on alt.tv.er.creative or at fanfiction.net, it truly meant a lot.  
DISCLAIMER: I do not have the pleasure to own these characters or the realm they evolve within. I do not make millions off of them. I do not have my name in ER's credits. I do not demand people write up ridiculous disclaimers. Because I was too damn stupid to think of it first! g  
Anyway... the story does belong to me, please do not redistribute without my permission. And no, I ain't gettin' a cent from this. Not unless readers start sending money (which would be just fine... J ) .   
  
Okay, on with the story...  
  
  
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He eagerly got off the plane and strode briskly to the baggage claim to get his one bag. So this was it. In just a few hours if he was lucky, he'd be getting the answers to all the questions raised by sixteen years of wondering. 

"May I help you, sir?" the soft voice of a young hostess asked politely.  
"I'm okay, thanks"  
  
Yeah, he was okay. It's his girlfriend he was more worried about. He hadn't told her about his little trip and she would certainly wonder where the hell he was. Well, so far the place looked nothing like Hell, but then he was still at the start of his journey. He couldn't really call her, as the foster home people would undoubtedly ask her questions. And much as he adored her, she had never been able to speak a lie. The last thing he needed right now was to have people chasing after him, though. He'd call her when a few things would be settled.  
Besides, it's not like he planned on staying here forever. It was his intention to hitch-hike his way back to Colorado in about a week's time, depending on how well things would go. After all, it weren't small potatoes he was here for.  
  
He felt his wallet in his inside pocket again and hailed a taxi. The drive was longer than he had imagined. That'll teach him to imagine things about places he's never been! But how not to picture that city, home of his only living parent left? The only one he'd never met. He'd searched many a day, many a night to find out where he was to find, collecting the smallest and most insignificant clues one by one. His mother hadn't been very talkative when alive. The only thing she had made a point of telling him was that the man whose  
life they were sharing was not his "real dad". As if to hurt or confuse him more, he thought. Then she died from her cancer and his stepfather sent him to a foster home in Denver, abandoning him "for his own good" at the age of eight. Ended up shooting himself six months later... But albeit trying, and most of the time painful emotionally, his search had been fruitful. It was now up to him to act on it. And boy, was he gonna!  
  
"Excuse me," he asked the cab driver, "would you know of any motels not too far from the address I gave you?"  
"Sure," the man in his late forties replied, "there's one half-a-mile up the road. Keep walking straight and you can't miss it."  
  
So he was gonna walk. No problem. His plan was to first see if anyone was home at his father's and then get to the motel. He figured he had about enough cash for five, six nights maybe. Gosh, he was going to meet his father! It only hit him now that it was really going to happen, that it wasn't some sort of wicked dream. He was boiling with excitement inside, and he felt his heartbeat pounding faster and harder by the minute. He'd just waited for so long...  
  
  
* * *  
  
When the car pulled up, he got his bag and paid the driver, thanking him again. As it drove away, he looked around and took in the house and its surroundings, the beautiful lake view. That house he'd searched for so long, and had eventually found. He stayed there mesmerized for a few minutes, and only blinked back to reality when a gentle, yet chilly, breeze blew past his face. 

Brushing off the thousand of second thoughts he might have had, he nervously walked up to the front porch and rang the doorbell. Within moments, the door was answered by a dark-haired woman of medium height, holding a baby that seemed to be about a year old to him, and the feeling of unease forming in the back of his mind started to increase at the  
sight of them. If his father had lived there once, he'd obviously moved. Or worse, started a new family and forgotten all about him. For a moment there he thought about just running away, but he was too proud to move. He hadn't come such a long way to back out now. So instead he composed himself and decided to explain to this woman the reason he was there.  
  
"Hi," he smiled awkwardly, slightly tilting his head to one side, as he always did whenever he was ill-at-ease. "I'm looking f—"  
"Oh, my God" Carol interrupted him as soon as his lips parted. There was no mistaking that nervous smile, and the oh-so-familiar dimples that came with it. She roughly guessed the boy's age and quickly did the math. "My God," she repeated, not quite believing what she was thinking, but knowing at the same time that it was as real as the hard hair-pulling little Tess was now practicing on her thick curls.  
He just looked on as that woman he had never seen before had seemed to recognize him instantly, causing her much shock and surprise, and causing him to lose his speech. This atmosphere of silent confusion was soon broken by a feeble wail coming from inside the house. Carol instinctively hurried to the source of the cry, leaving the door open for him to enter. He did not.  
A few minutes later, she was back, with another baby in the arms. Probably the other's twin. Another awkward pause occurred between them as neither knew what to say, until he remembered he hadn't introduced himself yet.  
"By the way, my name's Daniel," He extended a hand which Carol shifted Kate to her left arm to shake. "Daniel Thomson".  
"Carol Hathaway Ross" she smiled, not knowing how to handle him, as he noticed the wedding band on her finger.  
"Ross, huh?" he bitterly stated. "Might as well have been my name..."  
  
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TBC?? *You* tell me... 

~Adeline.

[gossy16@yahoo.com][1]

   [1]: mailto:gossy16@yahoo.com



	2. Part 2

Somewhere Along The Way, part 2

Part 2  
  
Disclaimer: Daniel is mine, the story is mine, nothing else is mine.  
  
Notes: Many thanks and apologies to all those who have been waiting. This is still a work in progress.  
  
  
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Continued from part 1. 

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Carol made Daniel coffee, and they drank it on the dock after she had put the babies to sleep. Tess was born 45 minutes before Kate, Carol had told him, and they were his half-sisters. It felt strange to think he was a  
brother to someone, after being an only child for so long. It also felt strange to think he had a stepmother, for that matter. It was even funny, in a way. In his earliest memories, there was his mother, and his stepfather. Today he was meeting his stepmother, and his father. That, too, felt strange.  
  
Carol told him everything about Doug, everything she knew. And she knew a lot! Daniel drank her words hungrily, despite knowing words alone couldn't fully quench his thirst. Here or there, she would unconsciously punctuate her recount with reassuring words. She said Doug was a good man, and that he'd be happy to meet Daniel, but it didn't stop him apprehending that fateful moment.  
  
Daniel had told her a little about his life - that he'd lived in Gary, IL, until his stepdad got transferred to Denver when he was just 5, that he played Basketball for the school team, and went to the movies a lot. He didn't tell everything, though. That was not what he was here for, and he didn't need her pity. Hers or anybody else's. But he listened, mostly. He listened to the countless stories, happy and sad, and the portraits of him Carol drew with words without knowing it. And so he learnt that Doug had few friends but would walk through fire for them, that he had a strong personality with a tendency to break the rules. That up until years ago he had been the type to haunt bars and pick up random girls to spend the night with. That he had wisened up since then and was a faithful husband. That he was a wonderful father. That the two of them looked strikingly alike. Daniel was sure that Carol never said a thing with the purpose of hurting him, but she was, through no fault of her own.  
  
It hurt him that his father didn't know him, wouldn't risk his life for him, didn't love him. It hurt him that it wasn't his mother his father had been a faithful husband to, that he wasn't the kid his father had been wonderful with. That nobody had ever told him he looked the spitting image of his dad. Yet he always wanted to find out more, and couldn't wait to see him.  
  
They talked for a couple hours which went by very fast, and when she finished, Carol told him that Doug would be there any minute. Then she went inside the house to attend to the babies, while he stayed there pacing up and down the dock, filled with mixed emotions.  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
  
Doug came home to the beautiful reflections of light glossing over the lake. The surface was calm, the air was still and warm. Maybe after dinner he and Carol could take the boat and raw a few yards from the shore to  
cancel out the awful day he'd just had at the hospital?

Unexpected visitors notwithstanding, of course.  
  
He strode toward the dock, where he thought he would find Carol sunbathing. She only ever sunbathed in the morning or in the evening, to avert bad burns. But Carol wasn't there, and he was most intrigued when he saw the light in the background outline the shadow of a young man about his size. But he didn't stop at that. Judging by the quick steps he was taking, walking back and forth and going nowhere looking down at the dry wood  
boards, Doug figured the boy was pretty anxious. Waiting for something, maybe. But what, and why was he in his yard?  
  
It all cleared up when he got close enough to distinguish the boy's face - and stopped dead in his tracks. It looked way too familiar to be a coincidence. Wow, talk about a surprise. Who would have thought? If that was  
possible at all, Doug felt excitement rise into him, and considerable amounts of shame & guilt burdening, and weighing him down at the same time.  
  
The kid - his son - hadn't seen him yet, but he couldn't just stay there rooted to the ground mere feet away. He didn't want to anyway. His old demons came back all at once, fighting so much in his head that he couldn't  
have thought straight if his life had depended on it, but for just a fragment of a fleeting second, excitement had been on top of the battle. That's the time he chose to step forward and walk closer again, looking down to avoid eye-contact.  
  
That's also when Carol came back out, but she thought she shouldn't meddle in this, so she just watched from afar.  
  
"Daniel? Daniel Morris?" Doug asked holding out his right hand, still in disbelief, and looking far ahead into the water.  
  
Daniel drew in a deep breath and stared at his father's hand for a full second before shaking it vigorously. "It's Thomson... My mother married."  
  
"Of course," Doug did his hallmark head-tilt as he amiably smiled. "Of course... So it's really you..." He said almost to himself.  
  
"Ah, yeah, I guess it is really me."  
  
If he hadn't been so overwhelmed, Doug would've gladly chuckled at this. The kid had wit, always a good thing.  
  
"Doug Ross?"  
  
"I am, kiddo. I am..." Their eyes crossed for the first time and lingered there for a little while. 

Suddenly, they became aware that they hadn't let go of each other's hand yet, and both felt embarrassed. But Doug only tightened his grip around Daniel's and pulled him into an awkward, but nonetheless warm hug. "I am." And his eyes got all watery as he patted his son on the back. His son.  
  
Carol smiled at the sight of them, she hoped they could get along and work things out. She decided to leave them their privacy and went back inside to give the twins their bath.  
  
They awkwardly broke apart, and Doug grinned awkwardly as he awkwardy said "I'm glad you came."  
  
Daniel, who was looking down again, looked up and to his father's face as he truthfully answered "I'm glad you're glad."  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"What? No, my son is *not* gonna stay in a shabby motel when we have a perfectly good spare room! You're staying here."

They appeared not to have picked up on it, but it felt weird to Doug to refer to Daniel as his son, to say it. Strange as it was, as the words spontaneoulsy escaped him, a sudden wave of pride came over him. And it felt nice.

To hear it, Daniel felt warm inside. Doug and Carol had been kind to him since he arrived, but this was the first time he felt truly welcomed, and he almost felt like one of the family as he surrendered. "Okay, fine. You win. But don't come to me in the morning complaining about my snoring."

Carol smiled genuinely and Doug chuckled. "You got it!"

Then he stealthily ruffled the boy's hair before grabbing his bag and leading him to the guest room. And as he entered it, it struck him as obvious that Daniel was not just any guest. He was his son, and this room would become his if he wished. Of course, there would be a much reluctant mother & step-father to contend with, but this was a thought he definitely wanted to keep in mind.

"There. Suit yourself. Hope you enjoy the view."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~~~To be continued...

[~Adeline.][1]  
  


   [1]: mailto:gossy16@yahoo.com?subject=Somewhere%20Along%20The%20Way%202



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